uggle for mastery in his heart. The
bleak mountain-peaks, the wide-extended plain and its wild denizens,
and the excitement these give, stirs his bosom, and the wish struggles
up to return to them. But the gentler chords of his heart are in tune.
The once-loved home, and she, the once-loved and yet-remembered maiden,
is there, and it may be she pines for his return. He gazed on the
beautiful apparition but a moment gone, and thought of another; and
thought begat thought until the loved one he had left rose up to
memory's call. He was alone, looking upon the great river through whose
turbid waters he was borne away, and he felt he was lengthening a chain
linked to his heart which pulled him back--to what, and to whom? It was
a vision--a dream with his eyes open: indistinct, unembodied, a very
shadow; still it floated about in his imagination, and he was sad. He
was in the city--the great Sodom of the West. He was an object of
wonder to every curious eye. His wild appearance and gentle manner
comported illy, and the thoughtless crowd followed him. Attired now as
a civilized being, and feeling that the vagrant life of a savage must
lead to grief, he called to mind the tear which stole from the rheumy
eyes of the old trapper as he narrated his adventures in the
wilderness, and cursed the hour he ever wandered from his home. His
life had been a continual danger, his hope had been always to return to
his early attachments; but the chain of habit fettered him, and he had
learned to love the wild, solitary life, because of its excitements and
its dangers. Should he, like this man, come to love the solitude and
silence of the wilderness, and find companionship only with his traps
and guns?

His resolution was taken, he would renew the strife with the world and
go back to busy life. His companion of many dangers and long marches
was going to Mexico in search of new adventures. They are alone upon
the broad levee--busy men are hurrying to and fro, little heeding the
two--a small schooner is dropping and sheeting home her sails; she is
up for Tampico, and Gilmanot goes in her; she is throwing off her
fastenings. "All aboard," cries the swarthy, whiskered captain--a grasp
of the hand--no word was spoken--it was warm and sincere, there was no
need of words--each understood that last warm farewell pressure. She is
sweeping around Slaughter-house Point--only the topmasts are visible
now--and now she is gone. The young adventurer stands